HOOKSETT – Following extreme water damage due to leaks during a rooftop replacement project in early August, the library staff has been hard at work on remediation and restoration efforts in the affected areas of the building.
These efforts have led to an ideal and timely opportunity for renovations and floor-plan updates in other spaces upstairs.
During the first month of our closing, the staff moved approximately 20,000 items down to the lower level of the library in the Village Depot and Prescott rooms to allow for direct browsing.
Water-damaged wallboard had to be cut from the affected wall areas and ceiling tiles had to be removed to allow for complete drying. To date, wallboard has now been replaced and prepped for painting. The next step is to have the walls painted.
A number of lights and electrical work were water damaged, the damaged lights have all been replaced with new energy efficient LED lights. Smoke detectors and alarms that were damaged have also been replaced and are now operational.
In the process of preparing to remove damaged carpet, we learned that we had asbestos tiles in two of our rooms. The asbestos tiles have been removed as of October 18.
Thankfully, our insurance company has approved replacing all of the upstairs carpet that was impacted, including the carpeting in our adult collections areas and the children’s room. The library staff has moved all of the remaining 30,000 items to shelving units temporarily staged in an upstairs office, the Discovery and Junior rooms as well as in the downstairs storage room.
As a result, we have been able to maintain access to all of our materials so that we can fulfill requests. Moving the collections to other locations in the building required many steps in advance.
The staff are now taking apart the shelves in the adult room, children’s room and young adult room to clear the spaces in prep for carpet replacement. Thanks to the Hooksett Department of Public Works’ invaluable help, shelving has been moved to an outside storage unit. The next step is to replace the old broadloom carpet that was installed when the library moved into the building in 1998 with a combination of commercial grade LVT flooring and replaceable carpet squares. The selection process of flooring materials that are not only within the approved price range by our insurance company, but are also an attractive, good investment, has been a challenging process and is holding up our ability to establish a fixed date for the library’s return to normalcy.
Please know that all of the library staff are working very hard and their very best to expedite the restoration and renovation process, while also taking advantage of this ideal opportunity to update our library to be the best it can be.
Our next steps include finalizing the flooring (with approval from our insurance company), removing carpets and installing the new flooring. In between removal and installation, we will have the walls painted in most of the upstairs spaces to coordinate with the new flooring.
Additionally, due to water damage, we needed to remove the circulation and children’s desks. We are in the process of selecting new desks and new furniture for the children’s and adult rooms.
We appreciate everyone’s patience with this restoration process and completely understand the desire to know when the library will be able to fully reopen. Please know the staff is doing everything possible to make this happen as quickly as possible while providing the best services for our community. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our patrons who have provided support to the staff the last few months and to our Director of Public Works, Ben Berthiaume, without whom we would be lost in this process.
You can follow photo updates to the renovations at bit.ly/hpl-post-flood-renovations.
– Mark Glisson, assistant director, Hooksett Library
